Balancing intuition and data informed decision making
Is your decision making a tug-of-war between your intuition and data? Learn how to trust your gut, while balancing external influences in this edition of everyday decisions.
This week:
explore - Gut health is more than probiotics.
consider this - How data-driven decision making may be harmful.
stay curious - Three questions to ask yourself or others this week.
explore -
Yesterday, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts - Podcrushed. The ever hilarious and humble Jake Johnson was the guest. At one point he was telling the story of his mom’s intuition and how on two occasions it was eerily spot on and saved him from some serious trouble.
These stories reminded me that gut health is more than probiotics. It's also about learning to listen and trust your ‘gut’ when making decisions. Our intuition in its most primal form keeps us safe. It's our little warning bell telling us something is off, let’s assess, and act quickly.
I remember during grad school I was taking the train home around 11pm after class. It was an empty car except for 2-3 people. I was sitting in the middle of the car by the window. A man got on the train and sat next to me. I immediately jumped up and headed to the other end of the car without a second thought. It was so quick. That is intuition.
Our intuition can also help us make fun, wonderful, opportunistic decisions, and yet, many of us only listen to our gut when it comes to survival. But our intuition can help us spot a unicorn investment opportunity or help us decide if now is the right time to buy a home or start a business. Our intuition is often silenced by fear, external influences, or *gasp* data. We are often taught to make data-driven decisions because it’s defensible. And it’s a lot harder to put your intuition into an infographic or on google slide.
However, decision making best practices suggest we need to listen and assess both.
The next time your intuition bell is ringing but it’s in conflict with other information, instead of silencing your intuition, use it to explore why the data and your gut are at odds.
Here’s some questions to help you explore your intuition:
What is driving the strong feeling? (e.g. fear, discomfort, etc.)
What biases might be influencing my intuition or the other information/data?
What potential consequences or risks exist if I choose to ignore my intuition?
Is there alternative information that could reconcile and align with my intuition?
When it comes to our gut, try to listen, explore, and understand it. The more you become present with your intuition and how it presents itself to you, the more you will begin to trust your inner voice even if it feels risky.
consider this -
Data-driven decision making may be harmful.
Data driven decisions. The best and worst catchphrase in the professional world. You’ve heard it. Heck, you’ve probably said it in many meetings.
But should we let data drive our decisions?
After spending more than 15 years in the crisis management world, advising decision-makers, with flawed and wildly imperfect data, I can say with confidence data should not drive our decisions; data should inform our decisions. The distinction is important.
Data-driven means the data is prioritized over other decision making elements like experience or intuition. And it can become a scapegoat for accountability and responsibility.
Data-informed means it's one part of the decision making process. Data is considered, weighed, examined and paired with other important information.
Jeff Bezos captured this nuance well, he said, “the thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. There's something wrong with the way you are measuring it.”
Data can be cut many ways, tailored to tell the story you or your stakeholders want to hear, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to better decisions or outcomes. In fact it can lead to unintended consequences if you’re not cross-checking the data.
The next time someone says data-driven decision making, challenge them to consider what that approach might be missing. And then offer a data-informed approach as an alternative. You might find another source of information, like your intuition, that elevates your decision and ultimately your outcome.
stay curious -
Questions to ask yourself or others this week:
When was the last time you listened to your intuition to make a decision?
What does confident decision making feel like for you?
See you soon! Til then, make confident decisions friends.
M